Dustin's Pages

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Software Development Posts of Interest - 18 May 2011

I use this post to reference several posts and blogs I have found interesting in recent days and to explain what about them interests me. The posts cover topics such as Oracle's new licensing terms for JRockit JVM, Oracle's proposals for changes to the Java Community Process, Groovy++, attributes of a great programmer, and several other topics.

JRockit Free for Development

The post JRockit is Now Free (and Other Java License Updates) talks about how merging of the (formerly Sun) HotSpot JVM and the (formerly BEA) JRockit JVM has required more than just engineering effort: work on licensing has also been required. A side benefit of this licensing work is the release of these two JVMs under a new Binary Code License (BCL). The post summarizes key principles of the new license and distinguishes between "JRockit is now free (gratis) for development and internal production use on general purpose computers" and "Commercial features continue to require a commercial license." The post includes a list of questions and answers related to JRockit JVM and these licensing changes.

Groovy++ is powerful, fast programming language designed to be easy to learn for Java developers. It builds on both Groovy and Java by combining together statically and dynamically typed code, giving developers the best of both worlds. The result of using Groovy++ in a project is expressive and simple code along with the safety and speed of a statically compiled language.

Because I wasn't aware of Java Miranda Methods until recently, I found this post from September 2001 to be somewhat interesting from a historical perspective. Miranda methods are not part of the Java Language Specification, but were introduced in early versions of Java as a "counterbug" intended to help with "abstract methods defined only in interfaces not being found." What is even more interesting to me than this historical novelty is that a September 2001 list message would be newly popular in 2011. This post is featured both in DZone (145 clicks and 4 "up" votes) and in Reddit (7 comments in May 2011).

The In the Workplace column Top 10 Ways to Get Fired lists ten behaviors that can often lead to termination of employment. Most of the behaviors on the list are not surprising or controversial. I especially like item ten: "Pointing the Finger at Everyone but Yourself." This is the type of thing I was referencing in my post Center of the Universe Syndrome.

Top Ten Attributes of a Great Programmer

Steve Riley's post The Top Ten Attributes of a Great Programmer starts by listing Riley's top ten list and then he adds a little more background on each of the ten items. I largely agree with his list and his more detailed assessments. Indeed, I've blogged on the importance of passion and confidence in effective developers and the importance of constantly trying to learn and improve. Several of the numerous comments on this post are also worth reading and add some funny (or sad) ones that are all too true.

Conclusion

The blogs and articles cited and briefly described in this post contain additional perspectives on topics that I believe will be of general interest to many Java developers and to many software developers in general.